Posts tagged “1968”

Photo of the day: SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE COLORED – I just scored this brilliant vintage 1968 blacklight poster by artist Robert Lewis on Ebay! The poster was produced by Celestial Arts, P.O. Box 1594, San Francisco, CA 94101. Poster #CA27, printed in the USA by Orbit. As a poster collector, this is now one of my favorites.

(It reminds me somewhat of the logo from the musical “Follies” and that wonderful pop art of the Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’ psychedelic era.)

Eccentric wheels differ from conventional Ferris wheels in that some of the passenger cars are not fixed directly to the rim of the wheel, but instead slide on rails between the hub and the rim as the wheel rotates.

Built in 1918 and opened in 1920 by the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company, Wonder Wheel has 24 fully enclosed passenger cars, each able to carry 6 people, giving a total capacity of 144 passengers. 16 of the cars slide inward and outward as the wheel rotates, the remainder are fixed to the rim. The whole wheel weighs 200 tons.

The only time the wheel stopped while not under the control of the operator was during the New York City blackout of 1977 on July 13, 1977. Wonder Wheel operates on electricity, however, the passengers were not stuck on the wheel, as the owners cranked the wheel around to get them off.

Photo of the day: GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL IS 100 YEARS AND 100 DAYS OLD TODAY – In the 1968 the city wanted to tear it down. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis stepped in and fought for it’s protection:

“Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future? Americans care about their past, but for short term gain they ignore it and tear down everything that matters. Maybe… this is the time to take a stand, to reverse the tide, so that we won’t all end up in a uniform world of steel and glass boxes.”

Sadly enough, her statement is even more true today in the Mayor Bloomberg/Councilwoman Christine Quinn administration than it ever has been. One half million people a day wonder at the awe of this magnificent saved building. With the greed that is so prevalent in our city today, with buildings being torn down left and right in favor of monsterous soul-less glass boxes – how many buildings are we to loose?…